The Memory of a Love Lost
by McGonagall's Bola
Summary: She really reminded him of the love he had once lost and would never see again; not at King's Cross, not in any other afterlife. Mild HG/SS


It merely had been the heat of the moment there, nothing else, Hermione told herself as she walked across the debris of what had been Hogwarts. The majority of the building had suffered great damage in this colossal fight – one of epic proportions. She supposed the losses and pains that had occured both in its lead-up and today would cause changes of epic proportions in their daily lives as well. They had lived with the knowledge it was very well plausible that they wouldn't come from this alive. It wasn't that she hadn't known what she got into as she told Harry she was going to go with him. Coming back here and seeing the place that had been her home for six years and where she had learned everything to be a good witch today, combined with the fright and the uncertainty of how much would still survive after Voldemort's penetration there – it had just been too much. The fleeting moment of respite had been needed, the kiss… reassurance, that she wasn't all alone in this, wasn't the only one afraid of what could happen and what and who would be lost.

It wasn't that she didn't love him, because she did very much so, but to get in a relationship with Ron… She had liked when he had defended her in the Room of Requirement, but… she liked that about him as a mere 'mate' as well. It just… their relationship was difficult to say the least there. They had their fights, and while she knew most couples had fights every now and then, she considered him more in a best buddy kind of way – always had.

She sighed to herself, looking nto the dark sky. Night had fallen now; everyone had been recovered into the Great Hall. Madame Pomfrey had tried her best to heal the injured, of which the more critical had been sent to St. Mungo's. Professor Minerva McGonagall had made sure they had something to eat and to lessen thirst and had ensured them they could just stay at the Castle tonight if they wanted. Most of the survivors had agreed to that. She could see the potential, of staying where loved ones had been lost, of being with those who had lost as well, and where, if you hadn't directly lost, felt the most useful to those who had. She could see how something like this created bonds for life – shared pain and grief.

She sat down on a large stone that must have been one of the castle's sometime and closed her eyes, sighed deeply. She was more than exhausted. Madame Pomfrey had wanted to look her over to make sure she had no serious injuries, but she had refused it, saying that she was just fine and that others needed help more than she did. Molly had asked if she hadn't wanted to eat something, but Hermione had said she really wasn't hungry and was going to take a brief walk alone. McGonagall had stopped her charge on the way, asking whether she was all right in terms of the possible, but again, she had said she was fine, leaned in to hug her old Head of House and said she was glad she was remotely alright, too – before telling her her cheek seemed to be cut very deep and that she should have Madame Pomfrey take a look at it. She hadn't failed to hear the sound of slight disapproval as the two women had let go of each other and she had continued on.

As her eyes fluttered shut, a soft music seemed to reach her, and she opened her eyes and looked about her, but couldn't find the origin of the music she was sure to have heard. She stood, walking a few paces further, but finding no more. Hermione had heard this music before, but she couldn't pinpoint where. She continued walking purposelessly about, thinking hard of where she could have heard this music before. It reminded of a hummed song, but it wasn't human. It was like a bird singing, but not a normal bird. That's when she suddenly recalled Fawkes' song when he had disappeared from Hogwarts after his master's funeral. She halted where she stood, finding that she had a good view upon the white tomb where Dumbledore, Fawkes' master, laid buried.

She shook her head, thinking about all the secrets the man in question had carried with him and how he had indirectly died for having wanted to one last time see his family. She understood him now, with her mother and father in Australia not even knowing they had an eighteen-year-old daughter here. She really hoped she would be able to reset their memories… She wanted to wait until all was settled more, though. She turned her back to the tomb, knowing that she couldn't turn back time anyway – not this time, even if she still had a Time-Turner. She never would have expected Dumbledore to die that way, never could have imagined the reasons beyond his actions, nor how Snape had been involved in all of it.

_Snape._ That's when she remembered he hadn't even been uncovered from the Shrieking Shack yet. In light of what they had learned from him, he didn't deserve to rot away there, she thought, and so she began to walk. She would uncover him herself and take him to the Great Hall. She doubted anyone else had still thought of him lying there. As she crawled there, which was significantly harder than the last time – not in the least because of the bruises that seemed to have become more painful ever since the fight had ended, as if the adrenaline of the fight and trying to stay alive only had tempered the pain – her mind filled with memories of Snape as her professor, and of how vicious he had often been. She couldn't see the man love and if it hadn't been based on his own memories, recounted by Harry, she didn't reckon she ever would have believed him. She didn't know whether it made all either more or less heartbreaking.

She frowned as she neared the body of her old Potions Master, wondering if maybe someone had been there already. He wasn't in the same position anymore. As she drew closer to him, Hermione saw that his eyes were open but not unseeing. She could swear she had seen him blink even!

Squatting down beside him, she looked at the wounds in his neck where Nagini must have bitten him, but they didn't look like wounds anymore and they were slightly wet as if… someone had cried on them, like maybe a bird of sorts. A phoenix. She sank to her knees, her hand coming up to cover her mouth as she redirected her eyes to his face, then lower to see his chest rise and fall very slowly. He was… alive. He most likely had injuries aside from the bites, though. She didn't know how he had come down, after all – or rather, she did, but Hermione couldn't tell if he had broken bones while he had and if so, which ones. She was no Healer after all. He must have lost consciousness at least. Fawkes must have come shortly after…

Her eyes flashed back to his face and she saw that his dark depths were directed to her. "You're in need of help, Professor," she said. "I'll quickly run back to the castle to get Madam Pomfrey, because I don't dare move you like this. I don't know if it would be safe. "

He sighed weakly and closed his eyes for a bit longer than necessary before opening them, coughing a few times weakly and swallowing as if to find enough strength inside him to speak. "Leave be," he said. "I wasn't meant to live after this fight."

His voice was raw when he said it and weak, but more sincere than she had ever really heard it – more emotional, maybe. She shook her head at what he implied, seeing through his manner of wording. "I can't," she said. "I can't leave you to die here. Enough lives have been lost tonight."

His voice was even weaker when he countered, "How could anyone want to save me after what I have had to do? I'm a coward, just like Minerva said."

Hermione reached for his hand and winced slightly at how cold it was. Immediately waving her wand, she tried to magically raise Snape's temperature by casting a spell on him – nonetheless, if she wanted him to be alive, she better hurry now. Who knew what more injuries he had aside from a partially healed few snake bites… At the same time, she thought maybe it wasn't a good idea to leave him there alone, and so, she waved her wand once more. After having produced merely puffs of silvery smoke, a large silvery otter appeared from thin air. Giving it her message, she waved her wand to send it off to the Great Hall to ask for help.

As she turned to him again, she found he had turned his face away from her as if wanting to show with this that he wasn't pleased with her actions in the least. Letting go of his hand, she shifted to his other side to look at him. "You've done good things as well," she said. "I'm sure that people would understand you better if they knew."

"No!" he spat, the loudest Hermione had heard him speak since she had entered the Shrieking Shack again and definitely louder than expected. She was slightly taken aback by it, not understanding and at the same time doing. He had stressed upon Dumbledore very much that no one could know the reason for his return was Lily, Harry had told them based on the memories.

"I don't see why you want to hide the fact that you've actually got a heart so much. If half of what Harry said based on the memories you gave him is the truth, you are no coward, but brave. Professor McGonagall would most likely agree if she knew. We don't reckon that she did… and you've taken away her best companion. She's hurting, too. We've all gotten hurt in this war in one way or another."

"I don't have a heart anymore," he said, tone sounding very familiarly bitter at that, but followed by tears rolling down Snape's cheeks. She was shocked to see this, biting down on her bottom lip and reaching to take his hand again, holding onto it tightly. This was the only modicum of comfort she thought of that wouldn't involve risking to hurt him. Hermione was nearly sure that he was merely too weak to pull back, and that is why he merely allowed her. It broke her heart to see the otherwise bitter, proud man cry like that – as if all emotion he had never shown in all the years she had known him, were leaving him right now, in tears.

"I know we all do some stupid and risky things for love," she murmured, watching him. Sometimes to save people you had to hurt them… She was sure her mother and father would be hurt to learn what she had done even if only to save them if she ever managed to find them and return them their memories – like he had hurt Dumbledore on the latter's explicit command. As she heard stumbling come closer, she looked him in the eye and saw the pleading in them. She gave him a look that meant so much as she wasn't at all agreeing, but anyway… She tucked her left hand back into her sleeve, reaching over to wipe his tears away. You could still see that he had cried, though. She saw his eyes flash to her wand on his other side, and she slowly nodding, reaching over him and whispering a spell to clear his grimy cheeks and the redness of his eyes. As she could clearly hear the sharper voice of the Hogwarts Matron now and her own Head of House as well, she whispered, "You're one of the bravest men that I've ever known," before letting go of his hand and rising to her feet to meet whatever search party had come at her Patronus.

She wondered if Snape had even heard what she had said, because as she eyed him again, his dark eyes had fallen shut again, the crying having exhausted him only further, she reckoned. She would never know if he had, because he didn't speak as Madame Pomfrey cleared and hurried him off to the Great Hall, then straight off to St. Mungo's, where he would get cared of better. He never allowed visitors, except for one single time Minerva McGonagall, who had demanded to be informed of all that had happened. Hermione had never known how in-depth that had gone over, for Professor McGonagall never told anyone of what had been said between the two ex-colleagues, and Hermione hadn't expected it to be different at all.

Hermione had been one of those who had tried to visit but never gotten entrance. In fact, she only learned that he had gotten released and left the institution without having informed anyone whereto days after, when one of the nurses at St. Mungo's had told Madame Pomfrey while she had been there to check up on the others that had been brought in after the huge war at Hogwarts. It looked like everyone would make it, either with or without full recovery. Few of them would leave without scars, though luckily enough many had been spared from lifetime conditions like the loss of a limb or a weak spine for the rest of their lives – better than nothing with all the deaths and more funerals following the war, at least.

Hermione never knew that the words she had spoken to him before the 'rescue team' had come in to get him, would be burned into Snape's memory for the rest of his life – the words he needed to even consider the thought of going on instead of ending it. He immediately left the country without a second look after release from St. Mungo's.

Hermione would never know that at that last moment, she had reminded him so of Lily – who had always tried to see the best in others no matter what, and who had been Muggle-Born but more intelligent and far more adept than really any other witch their year and to a certain extent above, too. Snape had loathed Harry for reminding him so of James Potter, the man who had whisked her away, but he had loathed Hermione Granger, too – more than pupils in all. If only for reminding him of the love he had once lost and would never see again. The woman he had loved for the rest of his life, too. _Always._


End file.
